M. de Talleyrand was buried at Valençay, in the chapel of the Sisters of St. André, which he had founded, and in which he had expressed a desire that the family vault should be placed.
His career and character have been gradually developed in this sketch, so that there remains little to say of them here. They were both, as I have elsewhere observed, coloured by their times, and must be regarded in connection with an epoch of social immorality and constant political change. Many of his faults were so inherent in that epoch, that, although they justly merit blame (for vice and virtue should be independent of custom and example), they also admit of excuse.
As to the variety of political parts which he played in the different scenes of the great drama which lasted half a century, one is daily seeing changes so extraordinary and so rapid amongst the most respectable public men of our own day, and even of our own country, that it would be absurd not to acknowledge that, when years run rapidly through changeful events, we must expect to find those whose career is embarked on so unsteady a current, uncertain and variable in their opinions. The stiff consistent character is of the middle ages.
At the commencement of the great Revolution of 1789, M. de Talleyrand took the liberal side in politics; a strong party of his own rank and profession did not do so, but many of the most illustrious did; and with the best motives. A certain interval elapsed; the monarchy was overthrown; a reign of madness and terror succeeded it; and, emerging from this sanguinary obscurity, men were just beginning to adopt some principles of order, which they brought together under the name of a Republic.
It is hardly for us (who have with our own eyes seen Frenchmen of high rank and generally acknowledged honour, even the personal friends of a deposed sovereign, become, within a few days after his fall, Republicans; and within a few years the confidential leaders of another dynasty)—it is hardly for us, I say, to judge with any great severity a Frenchman, who, returning to France at the time at which M. de Talleyrand revisited it, consented to serve the Directory. Neither can we be surprised, when it appeared evident that under the Directory things were again approaching the state of terror and confusion, of which so horrible a recollection still existed, that M. de Talleyrand preferred the government of one man to the want of any government at all—the organization of society under a temporary despotism, to its utter and radical decomposition. By and by, license and disorder being vanquished, moderate and regular notions as to liberty grew up; the dictator then appeared the tyrant,—and the fortunate soldier, the military gambler after fortune. This soldier converted the nation into an army, and his army was beaten: and M. de Talleyrand aided in reviving that nation, and giving it the framework of a constitutional system, under a legitimate monarchy;—almost, in fact, that very system which thirty-five years before he had wished to see established. Years rolled on and seemed to bring with them the renewal of the old maxim, that “Restorations are impossible.” The royal émigré, pointedly described as having forgotten nothing and learned nothing during his misfortunes, had not sufficiently imbibed the spirit of a new society which had risen up since his youth—a society which had neither the customs nor inclinations on which he considered that a monarchy should be maintained.
Charles X.’s views created suspicions which his acts, greatly exaggerated by those suspicions, hardly justified. But the knowledge that he thought that public liberty depended solely on his will, made the slightest movement towards controlling that liberty—dangerous.
The crown fell into the gutters of Paris. The government which most resembled the one which was overturned was still a monarchy with a monarch taken from the same family as the one deposed, but who was willing to accept his throne as a gift of the French nation and could not pretend to it as a legitimate right. M. de Talleyrand helped to form such a government.
It cannot be said that he departed in this case from his principles, though he changed his allegiance.
In fact, I hardly think, looking calmly and dispassionately at each of the epochs I have thus rapidly passed over, that any sensible and moderate man will deny that the side taken by M. de Talleyrand was the one on which, in every instance, lay good sense and moderation. It cannot be said that in the various changes that marked his career, he ever acted disinterestedly; but at the same time it may be urged that every time he accepted office he did thereby a real service to the cause he espoused, and even to the country to which he belonged.